


The effect of alignment on the aim of 6th year Hogwarts students using the Confringo or common blasting spell

by thehaikubandit



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Evil overlord association, Fictional science, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-24
Updated: 2014-04-24
Packaged: 2018-01-20 15:18:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 959
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1515242
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thehaikubandit/pseuds/thehaikubandit
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>So my friend wanted a story, and all I could write was a fictional lab report...</p>
            </blockquote>





	The effect of alignment on the aim of 6th year Hogwarts students using the Confringo or common blasting spell

**The effect of alignment on the aim of 6th year Hogwarts students using the Confringo or common blasting spell**

Written by Evil Overlord AssociationTM Science Division

Report commissioned by:  
Evil Overlord AssociationTM Human Resources

**Background:**

It is a well-established phenomena that despite all training, those of a less “good” alignment are rarely able to kill, injure, or maim those they do battle with, particularly in ranged combat. Due to the expense involved in training new staff, growing new armies or corrupting new civilians the Evil Overlord AssociationTM Science Division was politely asked to investigate the matter. Experiments were carried out with a variety of sliding degrees of alignment, those of a good, neutral and evil disposition. The primary findings are contained within this report.

**Aim:** To test the degree that alignment over training dictates accuracy in ranged combat.

**Hypothesis:** Those of a good alignment will have perfect aim, no matter the targets whereas those of an evil alignment will only have accurate aim against those also of an evil alignment. 

**OH &S:**  
Issue One: To prevent participants from killing or injuring each other, lab damage, and injury to staff those of good and evil alignments are not to be mixed under any circumstances.  
Issue Two: Should the purpose of the experiment be revealed OH&S believe staff could be attacked by good or neutral participants. Ensure a sound cover story to prevent this.  
Issue Three: Confringo is a dangerous and flammable spell and standard magical and fire precautions should be taken. Wards are a must! Also staff are reminded that just because this is a slightly unorthodox procedure it does not mean eye protection, lab coats and enclosed footwear do not need to be used.

**Materials:**

• Five Hogwarts students aligned with the Dark Lord (designated evil)  
• Five Hogwarts students aligned with neither the Dark Lord nor Harry Potter (designated neutral)  
• Five Hogwarts students aligned with Harry Potter (designated good)  
• 15 wands, inspected to insure non-biased results  
• Five enchanted “evil” targets  
• Five enchanted “neutral” targets  
• Five enchanted “good” targets  
• One weapons range

**Method:**

In order to ensure a limited effect on the results, students with identical OWL results were chosen, all from 6th year. Students were all of similar magical heritage and all from Hogwarts again to further avoid affecting results. 

Each student was instructed to use a standard verbal blasting curse (Confringo) to hit the target in front of them.

The five evil aligned students were each requested to cast Confringo on the “evil” targets. The targets were replaced a total of five times, with points allocated and recorded based on where the target was hit (fig i). This was repeated for both “neutral” and “good” targets with results recorded each time.

 

Once the evil aligned students had left (as per OH&S requirements) the good aligned students repeated the procedure.

To ensure an experimental control, neutrally aligned students also repeated the procedure, so that a standard aim score could be calculated.

**Results:**

Student Number Alignment Score against Evil (/25) Score against Neutral (/25) Score against Good (/25)  
1 Evil 25 19 3  
2 Evil 18 15 0  
3 Evil 23 18 2  
4 Evil 22 16 2  
5 Evil 14 10 1  
6 Neutral 15 14 4  
7 Neutral 12 13 5  
8 Neutral 15 17 3  
9 Neutral 16 15 2  
10 Neutral 14 12 4  
11 Good 21 11 2  
12 Good 22 10 2  
13 Good 25 17 6  
14 Good 25 19 4  
15 Good 24 15 5

Alignment Score against Evil (/25) Score against Neutral (/25) Score against Good (/25)  
Evil 20.4 15.6 1.6  
Neutral 14.4 14.2 3.6  
Good 23.4 14.4 3.8

**Discussion:**

As is clearly demonstrated by the results above, scores for all three groups were lower against “Good” targets. Those of neutral alignment had similar results against evil and neutral targets, suggesting that it is only the “good” targets that affected their aim.

However in the case of the evil aligned students it was far easier for them to hit the “evil” targets than the “neutral” or “good”, a similar pattern to the good aligned subjects. This suggests a possible explanation for the amount of friendly fire inflicted to our side, and the improbable aim of our enemies. 

The results gathered appear to disprove the primary hypothesis, that those of a good alignment will have perfect aim, no matter the targets whereas those of an evil alignment will only have accurate aim against those also of an evil alignment.

Further study on the effect of alignment on ranged combat aim using different subjects is suggested to add to the data gathered, and to see if any particular evil group is better at aiming than others. It has been suggested Storm Troopers may have worse aim than the Death Eaters tested today.  


**References:**

Black, J et al, 2001, Aim in Imperial Storm Troopers against a standard target, vol.14, no. 8, 1555-1561, retrieved 10th September 2013, Empirical Science.

Britton, A & Hardie, J 2009, Comparisons in the effectiveness of ranged and contact combat in Iga Ninja, vol. 11, no. 180, retrieved 19th September 2013, Feudal Database.

Howlett, G et al, 2007, The effectiveness of Confringo as a ranged spell, vol. 12, no. 10, retrieved 9th September 2013, Witch Weekly.

Karpov, S et al, 2006, Why can we only hit the bastards in red shirts?, vol. 92, no. 73, retrieved 14th September 2013, Klingon Publications.

Pinto, V et al, 2007, Storm Trooper aim and phenotypic expression of genes, vol. 26, no. 1-2, 3-18, retrieved 14th September 2013, Empirical Science.

Smith, J et al, 2012, The benefits of aiming at structures over the enemy, vol.17, no. 3, 143-151, retrieved 10th September 2013, Evil Overlord Publication.


End file.
